Voodoo Plague - 01 (2 page)

I involuntarily
held the breath that caught when the lights went out.  It seemed the whole
world was holding its breath.  After a moment I slowly let the breath out, and
then caught it again when I heard the faint sounds of a woman screaming.  It
seemed to be coming from outside and I carefully made my way to the window. 
The sun was coming up and there was light around the curtains, but it had a
strange quality to it. 

Opening the
curtains I looked down from my fifth floor window onto the swamp I had driven
around the night before.  A dense layer of mist hung just above the surface of
the water, but what caught my attention was downtown Atlanta, 35 miles to the south. 
Atlanta was burning.  Dense, black smoke billowed across much of the horizon,
lit from within by what must have been thousands of fires as the city was
consumed in flame.  My mouth fell open as I stared at what looked like a
Hieronymus Bosch painting of hell.  How did it all happen so fast?  Was
civilization really that fragile?

I don’t know how
long I would have stood staring at the inferno, but my attention was pulled
away by another of the screams that had first brought me to the window.  In the
swamp, wading through water to her waist was a woman who appeared to be
completely naked.  Behind her trudged three men.  As I watched, one of them
stepped into what had to be a deep hole and fell forward into the slime choked
water, but instead of swimming he started thrashing violently until he sank
from sight.  His two companions never even turned their heads or tried to help
him, just maintained their pursuit of the woman.

They were
gaining on her as she struggled through the water and she turned her head to
see how close they were and let out another scream.  This was the scream that
got me moving.  I burst out of my hotel room door and collided with an
immensely fat man that was standing in the hallway.  I bounced off him like a
tennis ball, spinning sideways but managing to maintain my footing.  I started
to apologize but the words died in my mouth when he turned towards me and I saw
his face.

Morgue grey is
the only description I can come up with for the color of his skin, at least
what I could tell from the emergency lighting in the hall.  His eyes were solid
red orbs, no pupil or iris visible.  Black blood dripped from both ears and
nostrils and his lips were skinned back exposing bleeding gums.  He took a
lumbering step towards me, raising an arm in my general direction and making a
sound that was half way between a snarl and a wet gurgle.

The nerve agent
was here!  I didn’t know if I could help him, but I knew I could help the woman
in the swamp if I could just get past Shamu and to the fire stairs. 

I slipped to the
side and the fat man cocked his head as if he was tracking the sound of my
movement, then swiveled his bulk towards me. 

“Hey, buddy. I
need to get downstairs to help...”  I didn’t get to finish the sentence before
his head snapped into direct alignment with me and he charged.  Maybe stampeded
is a better word given his size, but regardless he was at least 400 pounds of
beef on the hoof charging directly at me.  A wet, gurgling snarl was coming
from his mouth as he built up speed.

I remembered
Max’s words, “the nerve agent is causing hyper aggression”, and that was sure
what I was seeing.  I dodged to the side, threw an elbow with all of my 230
pounds behind it to his kidney and danced backwards as he slammed into the wall
with a crash that rattled the doors around us.  Immediately from several of the
rooms around us a clatter of fists banging on wood and the same wet, gurgling
snarl started.  I looked around to make sure none of the doors were opening
behind me, then turned back to the mountainous threat that had righted itself
and was coming towards me, showing no sign of injury from either my elbow
strike or the impact with the wall.

The way to the
fire stairs was now clear, and I could have run, but I didn’t like the idea of
leaving this guy to shamble after me.  Dancing to the side I leaned out and
delivered a straight kick to the side of his left knee.  The already
overstressed joint gave with a wet snap and he collapsed to the floor, still
snarling but showing no indication of pain.  He tried to stand up, and when the
ruined knee couldn’t support his bulk he started pulling himself towards me on
the carpet with his arms.  Now I turned and ran.

I hit the fire
door at speed, trusting momentum to carry me through any threats that waited on
the other side of the door, but the stairwell was empty.  I raced down the
stairs, some of my speed fueled by the creepy encounter I’d just had in the
hall, some by the thought of the struggling woman I was trying to save. 

I hit the ground
floor exit door with a bang and crashed into the parking lot.  Thirty feet in
front of me the parking lot ended at a grassy border then the swamp began.  The
woman was another fifty feet out in the water struggling directly towards me
and started screaming for help when she saw me.  The two men chasing her were
closing the distance on their prey and I was too far away to tell if they were
in the same condition as the fat man I’d just put down.

To my right in
the parking lot were three more men who had been moving towards the woman’s
screams but had now changed direction towards me.  They were close enough for
me to see the solid red eyes and hear the same wet, gurgling snarl coming from
each of them.  Oh shit!

Remembering how
the fat man seemed to track me by sound I froze in place and held my breath,
but they kept coming, snarling continuously.  Then the woman in the swamp
screamed for help again and all three of them swiveled towards her and picked
up speed.

They weren’t
what I’d call fast, but they could cover a good amount of ground in a
relatively short time.  Their pace was probably comparable to an average person
walking fast.  I could easily move faster than them.

I met the eyes
of the woman and even from a distance I could see the terror and fatigue in her
face.  She wasn’t going to last much longer if I didn’t do something.  Looking
around for any type of weapon, I spotted a sapling pine tree at the end of the
building that had two large landscaping stakes driven into the ground supporting
it.  These are the thick wooden stakes that are about seven feet long with a
sharpened point that looks like a pencil that is driven into the ground and tied
to a young tree for support.

As quietly as I
could I stepped onto the grass, moved to the tree and started working one of the
stakes lose from the ground.  Apparently I made more noise than I thought
because the man closest to me swiveled his head in my direction, then changed
course directly for me.  He was less than 10 feet away when the pole finally
released from the ground and I ripped it away from the tree tie downs.  Just
like the fat man his eyes were blood red orbs and blood trickled from his ears
and nose.  As I raised my weapon his pace didn’t falter and the blank
expression on his face didn’t change.  He just kept coming.

I planted my
feet well apart for balance and swung the stake in a giant arc like I was
trying to break open a piñata.  It struck the side of his head and snapped off
a good eighteen inches of its length from the impact.  The man dropped like the
proverbial sack of potatoes and lay still.  I hoped he was down for the count.

The sounds of
our scuffle had attracted the attention of one of the other men from the
parking lot who was now heading directly for me.  I’m a big guy at 6’2 and 230
pounds, but this guy had at least three inches and 50 pounds on me.  There was
no way I wanted to get into a grappling contest with him. 

Risking a glance
at the swamp I noted the woman had stopped moving and was sobbing as her
pursuers from the swamp and parking lot closed the distance.  Time was running
out quickly.  With few options I charged my attacker with the pole extended
like a lance and buried the sharpened end into his stomach.  There was a moment
of resistance when the stake met his flesh, then I could feel the sharp point
push through the skin and bury in his abdomen.  This guy was finished.

I pulled back on
the length of wood, wanting to use it again and was caught unprepared when he
grabbed it and yanked towards him, pulling me with it.  I barely recovered in
time to avoid his clumsy attempt to wrap me up in a bear hug and backed away in
shock.  He stood there, gently swaying, with at least a foot of the stake
buried in his guts and there was no indication that he felt any pain from a
wound that should have put him down permanently.  He started to turn to face me
and I grabbed the wood and wrenched it out of his guts before he could get
another grip on it.

I stepped to the
side, raised the stake over my head and using both hands drove the sharp point
directly into his blood red right eye.  If I had hoped that I could take him
out with a thrust to the head I was disappointed.  The taper on the end was too
shallow and while it pierced his eye it was stopped from reaching his brain by
the eye socket.  I felt the hard stop in my arms and quickly pulled away,
stepped back and swung for the bleachers.  The wood snapped again when it hit
the side of his head, leaving me with about a four foot club with a nasty 10
inch splinter as thick as my thumb protruding from the end.

He was slowed
down, but not stopped.  Quickly lunging forward I buried the splinter in his
left eye, my forward progress stopping when it hit the inside of the back of
his skull.  Pulling the club out of his head I spun towards the swamp as he hit
the ground with a wet, meaty thump.

The woman was
still standing in place, but she had stopped sobbing, apparently too terrified
to even cry.  The two men that had pursued her through the swamp were no more
than 10 feet behind her and the remaining parking lot guy was about 15 feet in
front of her.  She was in water to mid-thigh and I could now tell that she
wasn’t completely naked.  She was wearing what looked like a gold sequined
G-String, and nothing else.  Stripper flashed through my mind, but she could just
as easily have been dressed that way in the privacy of her own home and had to
run for her life.  See how my mind works?

I had a moment
to evaluate the situation.  When she had gone quiet her pursuers had stopped in
place.  More evidence for my theory that the blood red eyes indicated
blindness, and they could only track us by sound.  What I didn’t know was how
long they would stand still waiting for a sound before they started flailing
about looking for their prey.

Up on my toes I
circled around behind parking lot guy, holding an index finger to my lips to
tell the woman to stay quiet.  In position behind him, club held in my right
hand like a spear ready to be thrown, I hissed loud enough for him to hear but
hopefully not the guys in the swamp.  He immediately snapped his head around
and let out the start of a gurgling snarl.  He never finished the turn or the
sound because I buried the splinter in his eye the second I had a target.  He
dropped, snapping off most of the splinter in his head as he went down on the
asphalt.

“Run to me now!”
I hissed at the woman, frantically making the universal ‘come here’ wave, and
bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet.

She threw a look
over her shoulder and then seemed to gather her strength for a final surge
through the thigh deep water.  Pulling ahead of her pursuers she gained speed
as she reached water that was below her knees, high stepping the last few yards
onto the grass and sprinting to me.

The woman was
exceptionally pretty, even soaking wet and streaked with muck from the swamp,
but I didn’t have time to admire her.  I expected her to run and stop beside or
behind me, not throw herself against me and wrap her arms around my neck.  She
looked to be in excellent physical condition and was tall for a woman, nearly
as tall as me despite being barefoot, so the unexpected impact of her body
nearly knocked me off my feet.

She was
breathing like a locomotive, shaking like a leaf and doing her best to squeeze
me in half but wasn’t making a sound.  The men in the swamp weren’t so quiet. 
When she had surged forward and made a lot of noise splashing through the water
they had also started forward, snapping their jaws and snarling their wet,
gurgling snarl.  I was getting a much better look at them now, both of them with
the red eyes and blood dripping from ears and noses.

The guy on the
left looked like a college student.  Hair too long to have a real job, silver
stud glinting in his right eyebrow, made all the more noticeable by the
contrast to the red eyes.  The other one was a Georgia State Trooper. 
Amazingly his Smokey Bear hat was still in place and his weapon was still
holstered yet he gave no indication he was even aware he had a weapon as he
approached us.

I still had a
four foot wooden club in my hand, but didn’t like my odds against these two.  I
wrapped my arms around the woman’s waist, pressed my mouth to her ear and
mumbled so only she could hear, “They hunt by sound.  I’m going to move us. 
Don’t make any noise.  Quiet!”

I lifted her
free of the ground and slowly began stepping sideways towards the open parking
lot.  By this time they had reached the edge of the asphalt and both stumbled
with the footing change then came to a stop.  I had moved us maybe a dozen feet
out of line with their advance and when they stopped I froze.  They stood in
place, swaying slightly, heads tilted back and swiveling side to side.  I could
hear them sniffing the air and it scared me even more than I already was. 
Hiding from something hunting you by sound was difficult, but manageable. 
Sound
and
smell?  Exponentially more difficult.  There was no breeze to
worry about upwind or downwind, but that could change at any moment, blowing
our scent directly to them.